Repselect 2018: Live

The hacky throng is dispersing: co-secretary to Council, Cameron Caccamo, is saying that the replacement meeting won’t have to re-elect positions already filled. On the proviso, that is, that Council accepts the minutes of this meeting. If it does, vice president, general secretary, the general exec members, and education officer will stand elected. The Wom*n’s Officers’ election will, according to Caccamo, be re-held.

That’s it, folks: meeting is officially cancelled. Co-secretary to Council, Cameron Caccamo, confirms a replacement will be rescheduled for the second week of exams. Outrage from some councillors, who approach Caccamo to protest the rescheduling.

The fire brigade is here with a water vacuum. Everyone is milling around outside. Julia Robins is looking for alternate venues to move the meeting to tonight. Campus security have determined that the sprinklers were set off deliberately. They forced all present to line up single file to be questioned and checked to see if they were wet, as it was concluded that whomever set off the sprinklers would likely still be wet.

Gabi Stricker-Phelps (Shake Up) and Zifan (Crystal) Xu (Panda) have nominated for the Wom*n’s officer position, a move that breaches collective autonomy. Breen, in her speech, gives a message to men who vote to break collective autonomy: “There is no hiding that you are a sexist piece of shit.”

Wom*n’s Officer is up next. The candidates elected by the autonomous collective were Jazz Breen (Grassroots) and Layla Mkh (Grassroots-aligned). There are reports that Panda will attempt to break collective autonomy. We will know in the next few minutes.

First nomination for Education Officer: James Newbold (NLS). The minority bloc erupts into cries of “scab, scab, scab”. NLS only this afternoon decided to vote with Panda, after being close to signing a deal with Groots and Advance.

We come to elections for the five gen exec. Cameron Caccamo, joint-secretary to Council, issues a ruling: four of the five elected must identify as non-cis males. That’s because, out of the eight person executive, half must be non-cis men. Other than the gen exec, the executive is made up of the president (Jacky He, who identifies as a man), the general secretaries (Yuxuan Yang and Niamh Callinan) and vice president (Wanlin Chu and Dane Luo). Even though one of the joint-gen secs and one of the joint-vice presidents are not cis male-identifying, the Standing Legal Committee has ruled that the WHOLE of a joint nomination must be non-cis male to satisfy for affirmative action purposes. That means the three executive officers so far elected—i.e. President, VP and gen sec—elected simply don’t count for AA.

Donohoe (Groots) speaks to his nomination for gen sec: “I’m the only person nominating for this role who actually fucking understands this organisation”. He delivers a broadside against the Libs, Panda and NLS—to cheers from the minority bloc, and shouts of “fuck you” and “shut up” from Panda.

“Incels off campus” is the chant while Liberal Hartley Dhyon speaks to his general secretary nomination. Yuxuan Yang (Panda) speaks to his nomination while chants of “Give Back the 12k” drown him out. Yang has served as general secretary this year, and recently returned $1000 to the SRC. Niamh Callinan (Reboot) is drowned out by sounds of “Who are you? Who are you?” Yang says in his speech “I will do more for our students.”

Will Edwards (NLS) jokingly nominates himself for Vice President: his speech is a parody of the one just delivered by Lily Campbell, and is pretty much just the phrase “left wing” repeated in various shouty tones. There’s initial laughter, before he’s drowned out to chants of “1-2-3, fuck the ALP”.

We move to the election of the Vice President. Lily Campbell (SAlt) is the first nominee. She’s a member of the minority bloc, and will lose the vote to the majority’s favoured candidates. Instead, she uses her speech to praise the SRC and the left: she mentions the anti-Ramsay Centre protest and indigenous rights campaigns. She also accuses Panda and the Liberals of eyeing off SRC positions just to line their CVs.

The motion to limit speaking to 4 minutes fails. Only the minority bloc (Groots and Advance) vote in favour. Now the motion to limit speaking to 1 minute: it passes, with support from Panda, the Liberals, Unity and NLS. The sole NLS councillor, first-timer Nick Forbutt, was reportedly in talks earlier today with the minority bloc, but joined the majority coalition at the last minute. “How does it feel to start your career voting with the Libs?” calls a Groots supporter

Jacky He passes the chair to RO Karen Chau. Chau asks for a motion to restrict speaking times, so “we can get out of here before midnight”. She calls for speaking times to be limited to 4 minutes. Adriana Malavisi (Labor Unity) moves a counter motion: to limit speaking time to 1 minute. Shouts from the minority bloc: “Aren’t you for free speech, Adriana?” Liam Donohoe (Groots) calls out: “You’re not very smart Adriana”

Outgoing president Imogen Grant passes the chair to President Elect Jacky He. Uproarious applause from He’s supporters in the Panda faction, the Liberals and (by the look of things) Labor. That’s followed by shouts of “Fuck Jacky He” from the leftwing minority bloc, made up of Groots, Advance and SAlt.

Imogen Grant lauds the SRC’s fight for student and progressive causes, mentioning indigenous sovereignty and social equality. She says there’s a “real risk” the Council won’t pursue these causes in 2019. She’s alluding to incoming president, Jacky He, who has formed a coalition with the Liberals.

The room has been reset. Originally, the floorpan followed a Westminster-style layout, but RO Karen Chau thought that would be too adversarial. Now, councillors are on one side of the room—and everybody else is on the other side. Not sure that’s going to help with the whole adversarial thing—tempers are running high.

NLS (Labor Left) and their sole councillor, Nick Forbutt, seemed ready to sign with the Switchroots, SAlt and international student faction Advance minority bloc this afternoon, before switching to the vote with Panda at the final hour.

In a shock move, the majority bloc (which includes Panda and the Liberals) looks set to violate collective autonomy. More to come, but it looks like the Women’s Collective’s preselected nominees will be voted down

Grassroots, SAlt and international student faction Advance have been locked out of major SRC positions in deals done ahead of tonight’s meaning. Panda, the Liberals and Labor will win the majority of exec and OB positions

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